Is Love in the Air?

When Bostonist gets the Sunday New York Times (and yes, haters, we get the Globe too), we first find the magazine to see if the cover story is sufficiently compelling to make us jump right into it. When that is not the case (sorry, Joan Didion, but if we wanted extended meditations on grief on a Sunday morning, we'd go to church), we go to the Sunday Styles section to see how the other half lives (and marries). In the Styles section yesterday, we came across a weird article about some hot new cocktail, which contained the following rumination on autumn: "[I]n addition to its being the season of fresh opportunities for your social life - refreshed by the summer, being your personal best, a k a serious dating - fall is the season for prickly cactus pears." With this in the back of our mind, we were strolling through various squares in Cambridge later that day and noticed what seemed to us an inordinate number of young couples whom we presumed to be on their way to brunch after a first night together (the tousled hair, the amorous disposition, etc.). We had always thought it was spring that made a young man's fancy lightly turn to thoughts of love. But could it be that the crisp air and the end of summer are the real catalysts of an increase in semi-serious coupling?

Since (this) Bostonist is decidedly out of the game, being a father and four years married, we decided to call in outside experts. Finding that we didn't know any experts, we asked our single Bostonist colleagues. No definitive answer emerged:

Bostonist Alexandra opined that the young couples we had seen were a product of the new academic year: "The fall may signify some importance to single college and graduate students, as it is always viewed as a fresh start to all the indiscretions of the past year - you get a clean slate and people are quick to couple up at the beginning of the term." Bostonist Katie seconded this, suggesting that love (or post-hookup-brunch, at least) knows no season on her less-college-dominated side of town.

Bostonist Christi posited an alco-climatological theory: "I blame nature . . . fall weather is crisper, the snow is coming eventually . . . which causes the urge to be 'cozy' and the need for extra warmth, which is something one can do with either (1) another person, or (2) a cocktail. Combine the two and - BAM! - you've got your post-hookup-Sunday-brunch couples."

Bostonist Elisabeth, conceding that summer is "inherently flingy," posited a more important question: "Will the same tousled-haired couples be around come October? Do they even know the good places to brunch?"

So let us ask you, dear readers: Is fall a time for romance? For meaningless hook-ups? For ultimately meaningless hookups which both parties earnestly believe at the time to be real romance? What gives?